


adapted for breathing

by goshemily



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Museums, The Golden Trio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2537321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/pseuds/goshemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s little better than a day spent with friends, and with these men, each morning is its own joy. At ten o’clock Courfeyrac came into Combeferre’s bedroom with a smile and barely a glance for Enjolras’s leg uncovered by the sheets, and declared an adventure begun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	adapted for breathing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [await_the_dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/await_the_dawn/gifts).



> For [demisexualcombeferre](http://demisexualcombeferre.tumblr.com/) for the [Les Mis Trick or Treat](http://lmtrickortreat.tumblr.com/) exchange. Happy Halloween! I had a lot of fun thinking about Combeferre getting to do something that interests him, something that gives him a day of respite, so thanks for the great prompt. :D
> 
> Thank you also to [Overnighter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/overnighter), [sath](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sath), and [Ark](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ark) for hand-holding and beta help. I really appreciate it!

“What I want to know,” says Courfeyrac, “is whether you will now accord some measure of praise to Bonaparte.”

“A throne is only a seat to be broken into firewood,” says Enjolras, looking up at the entrance to the Louvre.

“And one that will smell the better for the burning,” Combeferre adds.

Courfeyrac laughs and ushers them inside. “At least it’s no longer the Musée Napoléon.”

“It was the Revolution that brought us this, remember – Bonaparte only contributed a piece or two.”

“A piece or two, or a thousand! Watch that you have more care when debating Marius,” Courfeyrac chides.

Combeferre laughs. There’s little better than a day spent with friends, and with these men, each morning is its own joy. At ten o’clock Courfeyrac came into Combeferre’s bedroom with a smile and barely a glance for Enjolras’s leg uncovered by the sheets, and declared an adventure begun.

“We are going to love our country today,” Courfeyrac said, and smiled wide.

“We love her every day,” Enjolras mumbled into Combeferre’s pillow, mostly asleep and languid with it. 

“Yes, but today we will _enjoy_ her!” He chivvied them out of the apartment and into the street in very little time; Combeferre hardly had the chance to mourn Enjolras’s beautiful limbs being clothed, and Enjolras hardly had the chance to properly awake.

Now Enjolras’s brows rise as they enter the Grand Gallery, and he tries to hide a yawn. “Does he mean us to spend the whole day here?” He sounds almost forlorn, like he imagines another way they could entertain themselves.

Combeferre takes his arm so they can better stroll. He feels light, enjoying Courfeyrac’s less-than-subtle flirtations with those admiring the lewdest paintings, and enjoying the warmth of Enjolras under his fingers. “When it opened, the museum returned to the people the monarch’s spoils and the church’s riches.”

“A museum meant to preserve the national memory; we need it. The public mind is forgetful. Louis-Philippe is crowned again, and how long before these doors are shuttered to those who should better recall the danger of a sovereign?”

“English coin is always a danger.”

Enjolras turns to him, face grave. “Don’t joke.”

Combeferre shrugs. “Enjoy it while you can, then.”

Enjolras’s muscles tighten under his hand, but Combeferre will not have the day clouded. It began with Enjolras tucked against his shoulder, dappled in the light of the window left open; how right that it continues now with a review of France’s treasures.

“I don’t care for most of this,” Enjolras says. “It’s propaganda.”

“Is it, though?” Courfeyrac’s rejoined them, a grin on his face. “For what?” He nods at Psyche. “Public nudity? Because I can give up my hats and Bahorel’s waistcoats for a look at _that_ in the streets.”

“You needn’t give up your hats,” Combeferre points out. “Just everything else.”

“Capital! Then I am all for it.”

“We were just discussing capital.”

“London, in fact,” Enjolras says. 

Combeferre laughs. Enjolras too has given himself to the day’s poor jokes, then.

They walk in the shadow of Mary and her smiling baby, and Courfeyrac’s mouth thins a little when he looks from their bare feet to the gilded cornices hung above them.

In front of Géricault’s shipwreck and its mutilated bodies, Enjolras – who never flinches – is silent. His golden hair against the horror of the raft is a flame.

“Not so much propaganda, this,” Courfeyrac says. He watches the corpses.

“It is,” Combeferre says, “but not the kind you mean.” The ladder of civilization is writ before them. There is a ship on the horizon to rescue the survivors.

“It only takes resolve,” Enjolras says. He sees the future and his own death with calm eyes.

Combeferre loves his stoicism, loved him first for it in a classroom too rigid to hold him, loves him best for it in the Musain or in their early morning bed planning, and silhouetted against history he cannot pretend Enjolras is anything but a knowing martyr.

Enjolras would not want him to pretend it. There are no lies between them.

“You know I will always love you,” Enjolras said last night, looking up abruptly from where he knelt over Combeferre, and Combeferre had laughed at the tableau he made, earnest and wanton both. 

“I know,” Combeferre said.

Their forever is the time span of progress, not the time span of a single human life.

It is why Courfeyrac has carved this day for them, in a March of uncharacteristic sun, a march toward hope; the day changes through the windows, but they are not changed with it.

“It is the fifteenth,” Courfeyrac says as they leave the palace, “and we must celebrate bringing down emperors.”

They find a small café that seats them outside to let them observe the fading light, and Enjolras raises his glass. “To comrades,” he says.

“To brothers.”

“To friends,” Combeferre says, and they toast.

**Author's Note:**

> Antonio Canova’s _[Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyche_Revived_by_Cupid%27s_Kiss)_ was donated to the Louvre in 1824. Leonardo’s [_The Virgin and Child with St. Anne_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virgin_and_Child_with_St._Anne_\(Leonardo\)) was part of the royal collection that was the original basis for the museum. Géricault’s _[The Raft of the Medusa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa)_ was purchased in 1824, and is famously confrontational; many of his contemporaries felt it criticized the restored monarchy.
> 
> The title is from the brick:
> 
>     He said: "Revolution, but civilization"; and around the mountain peak he opened out a vast view of the blue sky. The Revolution was more adapted for breathing with Combeferre.
> I think Combeferre would find a day spent in the Revolution's museum interesting, looking at where the Amis came from and where they were going.


End file.
